Audio 4:25
The Federal Government signs off on the first uranium mine for Western Australia

Anna HendersonUpdated
Tue 2 Apr 2013, 7:03 PM AEDT

The Federal Government has given final environmental approval for Western Australia's first uranium mine. The government has set 36 conditions on the project, which is based south east of Wiluna in the WA goldfields. Toro Energy Limited owns the project and says it's likely to provide 350 jobs in the construction phase and 170 jobs once the mine is up and running. The Greens and environmental groups oppose the project and say they'll continue to campaign to try to stop it going ahead.

Transcript

TIM PALMER: The Federal Government has given final environmental approval for Western Australia's first uranium mine.

The Government has set 36 conditions on the project, which is based south-east of Wiluna in the WA goldfields.

Toro Energy Limited owns the project and says it's likely to provide 350 jobs in the construction phase and 170 jobs once the mine is up and running.

The Greens and environmental groups oppose the project and say they'll continue to campaign to try and stop it going ahead.

From Canberra Anna Henderson reports.

ANNA HENDERSON: The Wiluna uranium project is in the central Western Australian goldfields.

The Government has announced final environmental approval for the project, subject to 36 conditions.

They include measures aimed at protecting the area from radiation and ensuring it's safe for humans and animals once the mine is closed.

The Federal Resources Minister Gary Gray says that's not the end of the process.

GARY GRAY: The environmental approvals, the complex and detailed environmental approvals, have now been concluded at state and at Commonwealth level.

The next decisions around jobs and exact detail of technologies are decisions for Toro to make.

ANNA HENDERSON: But he says it's good news for Wiluna and Western Australia.

GARY GRAY: We'd expect this to have a mine life of in excess of a decade, and we would expect this to process in excess of a million tons of ore annually and around three quarters of a million tons of oxide.

Now to do that will have a range of local economic implications and it'll also be a major job creator and creator of training opportunities for good mining jobs into the future for local indigenous people.

ANNA HENDERSON: The project is wholly owned and operated by Toro Energy Limited.

Vanessa Guthrie is chief executive of the company.

VANESSA GUTHRIE: It clears the way for Toro to bring the Wiluna uranium project in to become Australia's sixth uranium producer and the first one in Western Australia.

There will be 170 jobs in operation, and 350 jobs expected during the construction period.

ANNA HENDERSON: Vanessa Guthrie says the conditions that have been imposed will ensure environmental impacts are properly managed.

She says the decision paves the way for production to start at the site by the end of 2015.

And now Toro Energy will search out a partner for the project.

VANESSA GUTHRIE: Well the next steps for us are to secure a project partner, which will be through and investment and offtake contract arrangement.

ANNA HENDERSON: But The Greens spokesman for nuclear issues Scott Ludlam says this isn't the end of his campaign against the mine.

SCOTT LUDLAM: I take no comfort from these approvals at all.

I think it proves once and for all that the ALP cannot be trusted on the environment.

On an issue as serious as this, that Minister Burke thinks you can lock up tens of millions of tons of carcinogenic radioactive waste in the environment on a lake bed that floods effectively for thousands of years, absolutely beggars belief.

So we will step the campaign up, and for me this is the beginning, rather than the end.

ANNA HENDERSON: He says The Greens will go straight to investors with their concerns.

SCOTT LUDLAM: We will be briefing people in the investment community - so that's fund managers and analysts of mining stock - to ensure that they actually have the facts in front of them that this proposal may well be sub-economic and not bankable.